


Things Fall Apart

by nightmaresinwintah



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes - Freeform, Death, FUCK, Fix-It of Sorts, Good God, M/M, Pain, Poetry, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Stucky - Freeform, W. B. Yeats, always there when you need him, ao3tagoftheday noticed this lmao, but it helped me, but not at all, fUCK ME, god help me, i'm in agony, in some ways, my boy, okay, steve - Freeform, this is really not a fix-it, you god damn son of a bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 23:32:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14904285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmaresinwintah/pseuds/nightmaresinwintah
Summary: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.Or, the worst.





	Things Fall Apart

There are light fractals dancing across his sleeping face from where the curtains are drawn back. His hair pools around his head on the pillow, soft from the shower the night before. His eyelashes, full and rich in colour, lay against his cheekbones, deepening the shadows that circle under his closed eyes. His eyelids twitch from where his eyes move, darting back and forth. His breath is coming quicker as he slowly wakes. 

Steve watches it all from where he is propped up against the headboard. He is almost too warm, in the regulated temperature of the room high in the sky. Bucky’s chest is flushed, giving away that he, too, is overheated. Steve wets his lip and closes his eyes, turning his head away. When he opens his eyes again, staring now at the open curtains and the light pouring in over the creme carpet. 

“Steve,” comes the half-awake rasp. 

A rough, calloused hand comes up to brush over his forearm, up and to his shoulder, before falling back to the pillow. Steve draws in a slow breath through his nose, closing his eyes again. He hears the rustle of sheets, the sound of bones creaking and joints cracking. Metal sliding over metal, so smooth it’s but a whisper. 

“Steve?” It comes again, clearer, uncertain. 

Steve opens his eyes, looks to his left. Bucky looks - soft. He looks so soft and peaceful in the morning. It’s rare that he sleeps through the night, but Steve had watched him do it just the one past. His cheeks are round, a stark difference to how sharp they had been not too long ago. His hair is shiny and falls in waves past his shoulders. His eyes are bright, if bleary with sleep. 

Steve swallows past the lump in his throat. “Morning, Buck.” It comes out as a croak. 

Bucky’s eyebrows furrow, just enough to deepen the lines in his face. His hand - flesh - comes up to Steve’s cheek, cupping it so gently that Steve barely feels it. “Are you okay?” Bucky asks, voice laced with quiet concern. 

Steve huffs out a breath, eyes falling shut again, as though it takes more energy than he has to keep them open. He leans his face into Bucky’s palm, lips pressed into a thin line. He knows that he must appear exhausted. He knows that Bucky is worried. He knows - 

“Steve,” Bucky prompts, thumb brushing over Steve’s cheekbone, as though wiping away an imaginary teardrop. “Look at me.”

Steve opens his eyes, chest clenching at the effort it takes. Bucky’s eyes are clear, attentive. They move back and forth as they had in his sleep, searching Steve’s own. His whole face is open, honest. He looks worried, his soft lips pursed. He’s waiting for Steve to say anything, but even as Steve’s mouth falls open, nothing but a breath comes out. 

Bucky looks down, his head leaning forwards as he sighs. His hand falls from Steve’s face and comes to grip Steve’s own. He sits up a bit more, comes to lean against the headboard beside Steve, their shoulders and upper arms pressed together. 

“I had a dream, last night,” Bucky says. “We were back in Brooklyn -  _ our  _ Brooklyn. The air was hot, like it is now, but sticky and it carried the smell of the street. Can you smell it? I can. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it again.” 

His voice is quiet and Steve has to focus to follow his words. One of Bucky’s hands is cool against his skin, the other is sweaty. Steve fights against the urge to let his eyes all shut again, instead watching the light spread across the carpet as it rises in the sky outside the tower, lighting up the city. They can hear nothing from the streets below. 

“We were in our apartment, of course. On that ratty old couch. Remember how we had a pile of books under where one of the legs was missing? I liked to swap them out for ones I’d finished for ones I wanted to read again,” Bucky continues. 

Steve remembers. Bucky had a list, now, of book titles he used to read obsessively. He had a quest to buy the oldest copies he could find. There was a hoard of them on the bookshelf in the living room. Bucky had spent hours upon hours carefully taping some of the pages together in some of them. 

“I had my head in your lap. You were running your fingers through my hair. Strands kept getting caught on the scabs on your knuckles. I think - there was a record on. I can hear the tune but I can’t make out the words. Maybe it’ll come to me later,” Bucky muses. “Anyway, it was a nice dream. I wouldn’t mind getting more of those.”

Steve lets his eyes fall shut. The sun is creeping up the walls, now. 

“Steve, what are you feeling?” Bucky asks, squeezing Steve’s hands with the slightest pressure. 

Steve huffs out a breath, exhausted beyond words. Instead of speaking, he turns into Bucky’s chest and lays against him, breathing him in. In response, Bucky encases him in his arms, holding him close. His chin rests on top of Steve’s head, his breath ruffling the dark golden strands of Steve’s hair. 

“Try and sleep. We have nothing to do today but rest,” Bucky murmurs, pressing a kiss to Steve’s temple. 

Steve breathes evenly, in and out. 

The sun washes over the walls. 

*

“We have nothing to do today but rest,” he murmurs into the heat of the Wakandan forest. 

The sun is long set, but the night is illuminated by the moon. The grounds seems to glow from beneath Steve and dead leaves seem to come alive with the way the moonlight dances across the brittle curves. Steve’s eyes come in and out of focus as he drags himself into a sitting position. 

Dead leaves fall to the ground, disturbed from where they had lay over Steve’s body.

Steve brushes dirt from his elbows absentmindedly, looking around himself. The night is still. 

“Try and sleep.”

Steve lays back down, right left hand laying flat against the ground. The dust there seems to curl over his fingers. His eyes fall closed, again. 

*

There’s a soft breeze rustling the leaves above them, carrying the scent of rich earth and the grasslands just past the forest. Light bears down on them through the treetops, making the shine of his hair seem just that much brighter. His smile is bright, eyes creased at the corners and glowing with warmth. His skin feels so soft against Steve’s own, their palms pressed together and fingers laced. 

Steve watches him, drinks in the sight, the feeling. He feels tired, limbs moving sluggishly, but Bucky keeps pace with him and they move as one through the trees. There is no rush. There is only the day that stretches out before them, the promise of a dip in the river that lays beside them to wash away the sweat that clings to their skin. 

“Steve,” comes the amused murmur from beside him. 

There’s a hand cupping his cheek, warm skin against his own. Steve meets Bucky’s eyes. The shade of blue he finds there sends his heart fluttering, the way it  _ always _ does. Steve smiles, but he knows it betrays the exhaustion he feels. His eyelids droop, he sways towards Bucky.

“Steve?” It comes again, clearer, uncertain. 

Steve leans into Bucky’s chest, breathing him in. Bucky wraps his arms around him immediately - it’s instinct. “Morning, Buck,” Steve says, not really knowing why.

“Steve, look at me,” Bucky says, pulling away just a little, taking Steve’s chin with cold fingers and tilting his head up just so. 

Steve meets his gaze, searching it for the warmth he knows he will find there. It seeps from Bucky into him, thawing the ice that creeps up Steve’s spine. As Steve’s eyes clear and he straightens up, Bucky’s face smooths back out into a calm smile. Steve smiles back and steps back, hands finding Bucky’s own. 

They stand there, breathing together, watching each other, existing as one. 

The sun washes over the forest. 

*

“Steve?”

*

Cobblestones, brick apartment buildings, the thick stench of garbage in alleyways, blood in his mouth, a passing kid yelling at their friend, sweltering heat, shivering cold, Bucky - 

He blinks. 

The sun washes over his face. 

*

“Bucky?” 

The air is heavy, the ground underneath him is damp. Everything is still. 

And the dust - it has settled. Steve sits up, looks around. Where had Bucky gone? He can still feel the echo of his arms around him, encasing him, keeping him safe. He looks to the trees, but they give him no answer. They are unmoving. Not even the leaves sway. It’s eerie, like he’s not in the place he was when he lay down. 

There was a battle, wasn’t there? You wouldn’t be able to tell, from looking around. 

There are dead leaves on the forest floor, decomposing, feeding the earth. New shoots begin to grow from the nutrient-rich soil. 

How - how long has he been standing here? 

Steve looks away, looks to the sky. It stares back at him, glittering like the darkest of eyes. Maybe it has the answer. What is he doing here, out in the forest? He should be back in bed, laying next to - 

“Bucky?”

There is no answer. 

There is no sun to wash over anything. 

*

The beds are shoved together, the blankets shared. The nights have grown colder. They lay together, skin-to-skin. Steve’s still shivering. Bucky holds him, lets him lay his cheek on his chest. Lets him press his toes in between his calves. Lets him - 

“Do you believe in ghosts?” 

Steve hums, fighting sleep in order to answer. “What - Bucky, what’re you on about? G’to sleep,” he mumbles. 

Bucky breaths in - Steve listens to the air fill his chest, listen to his heart beat out it’s strong rhythm.  _ Thud-thump. Thud-thump. Thud-thump-thump.  _

“I reckon they’re real. If people’ve got things they leave behind, y’know? Like - people they gotta look after. People they gotta wait for,” Bucky says to the ceiling. 

Steve tries to listen, he really does, but he’s exhausted. Sleep drags him under before he can even begin to formulate an answer. 

“Steve -”

*

“Bucky -”

*

_ Turning and turning in the widening gyre _

_ The falcon cannot hear the falconer; _

_ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  _

_ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, _

_ The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere _

_ The ceremony of innocence is drowned; _

_ The best all lack conviction, while the worst _

_ Are full of passionate intensity.  _

_ Surely some revelation is at hand; _

_ Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  _

_ The Second Coming! Hardly those words are out _

_ When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi _

_ Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert  _

_ A shape with lion body and the head of a man, _

_ A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, _

_ Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it _

_ Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  _

_ The darkness drops again; but now I know _

_ That twenty centuries of stony sleep  _

_ Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking candle, _

_ And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  _

_ Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? _

*

Mere anarchy is loosed upon - upon  _ him,  _ bringing him to his knees, his hand outstretched and fingers just barely touching the dust that is - that is - oh  _ God.  _

Oh God.  _ Oh God.  _

It rips him apart and tears the shreds into tiny pieces and then  _ burns them to ash.  _

“Bucky -  _ Bucky - _ ” 

*

_ Haveth you forsaken me _

_ Brought forth in this lack of lust I _

_ Draw a double-edged sword and thus _

_ Thrust it unto us _

_ Drowning in thee - mud and nettle _

_ It is by choice, not blind happiness _

_ That I suffocate myself _

_ Unto heaven I forbade myself _

_ Haveth I forsaken myself -  _

_ Brought to light I stretch this maw _

_ And from it spills the tar _

_ That fills me _

_ Drowning in me - it was never thee _

_ Moorish land I have taken a knee _

_ And thrust from gut to ground _

_ A most hellish truth _

*

“Steve?”

He turns, a strange kind of numbness moving over his limbs as his eyes land on - on something that his mind struggles to comprehend. Bucky is - gone? He was there and then. Gone. 

Without thought his body is stumbling over to - to - 

He is on his knees. He is reaching out. He is cupping the dust on one hand, he is staring down at -

“Bucky?”

*

_ A most hellish truth.  _

**Author's Note:**

> This is my way of coping, apparently. Come and sob with me on tumblr at [buckyskillingme](http://buckyskillingme.tumblr.com/) .
> 
> The poems in this fic are (in order) "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats and "28.5.28" by yours truly. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm in pain!


End file.
